


Unfinished Business

by Sibilant



Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: Cabin Fic, Canon Compliant, Complicated Relationships, Inception Reverse Big Bang Challenge, M/M, Mutual Pining, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-18
Updated: 2018-02-18
Packaged: 2019-03-21 00:24:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,245
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13729203
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sibilant/pseuds/Sibilant
Summary: Alone in a house without power, Arthur and Eames swap stories.





	Unfinished Business

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Ghost Stories](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/358551) by lkaet. 



> Thank you to pyromancer, who wrangled my errant commas, guided me on past perfect tense, and was a fount of ceaseless enthusiasm. Thank you to bauble, who looked over the multiple drafts, redlined them, and pushed me to dig in deeper. And lastly, thank you to lkaet, whose wonderful artwork captured my imagination and wouldn't let go.

Arthur tests the light switch in the hall—on, off, on, off—then the lights in the parlour and back kitchen before letting out a sigh.

"Let me guess," Eames says, setting his luggage down as Arthur returns to the hall. "Our esteemed leader failed to ensure this place was still connected to the grid when he selected it as our base of operations." He closes the door behind him, shutting out the worst of the wind and snow, but the chill continues seeping in, insidious. Arthur crosses his arms and tucks his ungloved hands into his armpits with a grimace.

"Cobb was probably thinking about the sight lines," Arthur says. He beckons Eames over to the parlour window with a jerk of his head and twitches a curtain aside, revealing the snow-covered valley and, more importantly, the unimpeded view of the mark's property below. With a zoom lens, they'll be able to see straight into the man's home, observe his daily routines, his comings and goings.

Eames makes a noncommittal sound, and Arthur braces himself for—something. A backhanded compliment about Arthur's willingness to pick up the slack for Cobb, maybe, or a veiled insinuation about the true nature of Arthur and Cobb's relationship. It wouldn't be the first time. But Eames only pushes the curtains open wider, flooding the parlour with a cold grey light that illuminates the faded wallpaper, the mildewed ceiling, the scuffs in the floorboards which had seemed perfectly polished in the gloom.

"I'm surprised you accepted this job, even if it was at Cobb's request," Eames says. "I thought you loathed working jobs back-to-back. Or has that changed?"

Arthur glances at him, but Eames is still studying the mark's home below, head tilted at an angle that emphasises the sharp line of his jaw, the scattering of stubble at his throat that Arthur used to bite at. He wonders if Eames is doing it on purpose. It wouldn't be the first time for that either.

"I still hate working jobs back-to-back, yeah," Arthur says. "But this is—" he crosses his arms again, frowns down at the floor. "Me and Cobb asked for a lot of favours when he was on the run. Even if his name was cleared, we knew—" he shrugs and looks at Eames, who is now looking sidelong at him. "Shit doesn't end just because you want it to be over, you know?"

Eames' eyes slide away, back to the window. "Yes," he says, biting his lip, and Arthur feels a wrench of longing so strong it's startling. "I know."

 

* * *

 

Arthur inspects the house floor by floor, working against the rapidly fading sunlight.

Every level is structurally sound, and the bedrooms and bathrooms are serviceable, albeit musty and mouldy, respectively. Nothing that a good airing out can't fix, although Arthur isn't keen on opening the windows with the snow still falling outside. Tomorrow, perhaps.

There are more than a few point men of Arthur's acquaintance who detest this aspect of the job, although Arthur has never fully understood why. Even if it is, as some have claimed, the point equivalent of turning down the bed linens and laundering the towels, so what? Ensuring that team members don't fall through rotted floorboards or contract botulism is just as essential to a job's success as mowing down projections. You do the work that's in front of you, as Arthur's parents would have said.

"The biggest issue is the power," Arthur says, as he descends the narrow attic staircase. It won't affect their surveillance schedule, at least, and the PASIV won't need recharging until it's used, but there's no research Arthur can conduct without electricity and some form of internet connection. Plus it's damn cold, and getting colder.

Eames is waiting for him at the base of the stairs, clutching a candle in a gaudy brass candle holder that he must have scrounged from some dusty cupboard. In the dim, flickering light, Arthur feels more than sees the weight of Eames' gaze on his crotch. He pauses halfway down the stairs, and if the position just so happens to pull the fabric of his pants tight against his body—well. Arthur doubts Eames is going to complain.

"I'm gonna make a couple of phone calls, see if I can get the utilities switched on by tonight or tomorrow morning." Arthur gestures toward the back of the house, the area they'd already identified as having the best signal strength. "But I still think it'd be easiest if we camped out in the parlour tonight. Or the—you know. Sitting room, drawing room. Whatever you Brits call it these days." He and Eames both have sleeping bags with them, and— "That fireplace," Arthur says. "Are you good to get it going?"

Eames rakes his gaze along Arthur's body, slow and deliberate, then looks up at Arthur from beneath the fan of his lashes. One corner of his mouth crooks up and, despite the cold, a curl of heat unfurls in Arthur's belly.

Eames' lips part, and Arthur knows—he _knows_ —that Eames is going to make some innuendo about getting something going. Arthur's mouth curves into a helpless, anticipating smile, and—

A gust of wind buffets the house, setting off a cacophony of groaning and an arrhythmic tapping and scratching that Arthur identifies—after a heart-stopping moment—as tree branches knocking against the windows. Bitter cold sluices through dozens of unseen cracks and gaps, and Eames' candle sputters, casting wavering shadows over the walls. Eames' heavy-lidded expression transforms into one of distinct alarm.

"What?" Arthur says. He descends the remaining steps quickly, then stops again as he recalls what Eames had said as they stood outside, gazing up at the house's dilapidated Queen Anne facade. "You weren't being serious, were you? When you said you think this place is haunted?"

"I—" Eames hesitates, eyeing Arthur's face. His smile returns, but it's the practiced, superficially charming one he trots out for clients and marks, and Arthur winces. "Of course not. But as I said before, we regularly play in the dreams of strangers, performing the fantastical and impossible. Why do ghosts seem so far-fetched to you, in light of that?"

"Multiple reasons," Arthur replies. "But that's not— I wasn't judging. Really. I was just—surprised." He starts to reach out, but Eames is already pulling back, peering into the murky dark of the hallway.

"I'm going to go see about that fireplace," Eames says. "I shouldn't keep you from those phone calls."

"Right," Arthur says. Disappointment lodges in his throat, thicker than dust, as he watches Eames walk away. "Thanks."

 

* * *

 

Arthur calls Sumit, who puts him in touch with a fixer named Hee-Young. Hee-Young, in turn, reaches out to a handful of people who will—given a few hours and the right price—ensure a certain foreclosed house has its utilities switched back on without flagging anything or anyone.

The whole process takes more than half an hour, leaving Arthur acutely aware of 1) how badly he let his East Coast connections atrophy while he was on the run (he makes a note to schedule some casual lunches and dinners while he's still Stateside), and 2) how goddamn hungry he is. Hungry enough that he's genuinely looking forward to the gas station food he and Eames bought on the drive over—nevermind that the food will likely be stale and cold, and Eames' mood probably won't be much better.

Arthur pushes the parlour's double doors open—solid, good for keeping out the cold and muting sound, a part of him notes—then freezes in the doorway, mouth agape.

The parlour is still a study in faded grandeur, its corners lost in shadow, but most of the gloom has been offset by a small army of emergency candles arrayed on almost every available surface. Their bright, flickering glow pulls Arthur forward, and pulls a small, wondering smile out of him, too. Their food haul is lined up neatly on the coffee table, alongside a bottle of wine—one of Arthur's favourite Cabernets, he realises with a rush of startled pleasure—and—

"Are those Dixie cups?" Arthur says, leaning in and squinting at the little paper cups sitting beside the wine.

Eames rises from his crouch beside the fireplace, which houses a pile of (barely) smouldering kindling. "It's all they had at the gas station," he mutters. His eyes dart to Arthur's face, then settle on a point two feet beyond Arthur's shoulder. "Bit ridiculous, how they don't sell glasses with the duty-free wine. What's a globe-trotting wine connoisseur to do, I ask you?"

In the low light, Arthur can just see the flush blooming in Eames' cheeks, his too-tight grip on the fire poker, and Arthur's puzzled amusement is eclipsed by a tender wash of warmth.

"Eames—" Arthur steps forward, then stops as questions crowd his mouth, tangling around his tongue. 'What's all this for?' collides with 'why now?', which transmutes with quicksilver speed into 'why not then?'.

Arthur's smile fades. Across the room, he sees an answering stillness begin to steal across Eames' face.

It's that stillness—coupled with the memory of Eames' practiced client smile—that spurs Arthur into blurting, overly loud, "This is nice." He cringes internally when Eames gives him a dubious look. "I mean— well, it _is_ nice, but it's not just nice, it's—" he scrubs at his face. "God, 'nice' is such an insipid word."

Arthur lets his hand drop and moves toward the nearest candle. Skin prickling under Eames' veiled scrutiny, he cups his palm around the flame. Heat leeches into his skin, thawing his fingers, drawing a smile from him again.

"This is really lovely," Arthur says, with all the sincerity he can muster. "Unexpected and—" he eyes the neatly arrayed junk food and the Dixie cups, "—a little strange. But lovely."

Eames' returning smile is—hesitant. Sheepish. Two words Arthur would never have thought to apply to Eames.

"Good," Eames says, voice slightly strangled. "I'm—glad." He clears his throat, looks back at the fireplace. "The, ah—fire isn't going so well, I'm afraid."

"I can take care of it," Arthur says, stepping forward and holding his hand out for the poker. Eames surrenders it easily, with nary a defensive quip to be heard, and gets to work unfurling both their sleeping bags while Arthur stokes the fire.

"Never could get the hang of that," Eames says, as he returns to sit beside Arthur. He lets out a satisfied sigh as the kindling begins to crackle and the chill in the room recedes by a few degrees. "It's why I relocated to warmer climes as soon as I was able." When Arthur laughs, Eames straightens up, saying, "It's been a while since you've laughed at something I said."

"Has it?" Arthur's smile dims as he mulls it over. "I guess it has." He jabs at the fire, creating a momentary burst of sparks. "It was just—you know. For a long time, it felt like everything you said to me was a joke at my expense."

Eames makes an aborted movement—reaching for Arthur's shoulder or his hand, maybe, and the thought fills Arthur with a ridiculous surge of hope. But when Arthur turns to him, Eames is winding the tassel of a nearby rug around his fingers.

"I shouldn't have," Eames says quietly. "I wasn't in the best place at the time, but— and that's an explanation, not a justification. Not that you need an explanation, you were there for the whole—" his fingers tighten around the tassel. "Still. I shouldn't have."

Arthur opens his mouth. Closes it. "Eames," he says again, but Eames still doesn't look at him, and Arthur reaches out, touches Eames' jaw, turning his head. Stays like that until Eames meets his eyes.

"Thanks," Arthur says, floundering at how brief and inadequate it sounds. Between the two of them, he's never been the words man. "Thank you for saying that, I mean. And for the—" he gestures at the candles, the food and wine (and the Dixie cups).

Eames nods and takes an uneven breath. One corner of his mouth quirks up, and Arthur wants to lean forward, capture those plush lips in a kiss. They're sitting close enough that he could. It'd take no effort at all to let their bodies take over, to slide into heat and wanting and sex, but—

 _But,_ Arthur thinks. They've been down that path before. It's never taken them anywhere good.

He lets his fingers slide away from Eames' jaw, heart twinging.

Eames swallows. Leans back. "So," he says, with somewhat forced levity. "Dinner?"

"Sure," Arthur says, heaviness suffusing his limbs, and follows Eames over to the coffee table.

They eat in silence for a few minutes, sitting side by side on their sleeping bags, both lost in their own thoughts. The food is, as Arthur predicted, stale and cold, but the red is excellent. He tells Eames as much, though it comes out fumbling—a transparent attempt at recapturing that moment before they'd pulled away. But the squirming embarrassment might be worth it, he thinks, for the way Eames brightens, shoulders uncurling. Encouraged, Arthur opens his mouth to say more, until another blast of wind hits, triggering that cascade of creaking and tapping that makes Eames tense up. Arthur tilts his head.

"You seriously think there's something up about this house, don't you?" he says. "And I meant what I said before—I'm not judging. It's just surprising. You act so—detached from everything. Usually, anyway." He smiles tentatively at Eames' self-deprecating smirk. "I never took you for the believer type. That's all."

"It's part and parcel of forging, belief is," Eames says, topping up Arthur's cup (by a generous amount), then his own. "You've got to believe the story on some level before you can sell it to anyone else."

Arthur props his head up with one hand, elbow against the coffee table. "So what was the story that made you believe in ghosts?"

"Oh—too many to count." Eames tips his head back, contemplating the ceiling, and his sudden airiness makes Arthur's eyes narrow. "It's a lucrative con, you know. Convincing grieving relatives and partners that their loved ones have one final message for them." He takes a long swallow of wine, throat working. "They do half the work for you because they already want to believe."

Arthur stares. Part of him—the part that watched mourner after mourner walk into his childhood home, speaking in low tones to his parents about caskets and burials and cremation—is appalled. Another, more criminally inclined part of him is assessing the benefits and pitfalls of targeting the emotionally fragile and wealthy. And yet another part of him wonders—

"Didn't you—" Arthur pauses, deliberating over wording. "Didn't it ever hit too close to home?"

"Every good lie utilises an element of truth," Eames says, picking at his cup with his thumbnail. "You know that as well as I do. For example—" he sets the cup down and rolls his shoulders, flicks his wrists a few times—a series of movements that Arthur has come to recognise as Eames assuming a persona.

Eames straightens his back and casts his gaze downward, shoulders pulling in a touch. His expression softens, and when he speaks, it's in a low murmur that invites Arthur to lean closer: "I first became aware of my gift after my father passed—"

"Jesus," Arthur says. A reflexive grin spreads across his face and horrified laughter threatens to bubble up out of him. He quashes both by taking a hurried sip of wine. "That—God, I don't know how—I could never do that. And I don't mean in some morally opposed way, I—" He shakes his head. "Even with a demonstration, I don't get how you can just _convince_ yourself like that. Nevermind dragging someone else onto the ride with you."

"It's not so hard." Eames goes back to toying with his cup, spine and shoulders loosening, shaking off his nobly suffering psychic act. "Haven't you ever wanted something so very much that you ignored—everything? Your own common sense, the things you were taught. Restructured your whole worldview to fit this want, until it felt like it had been there all along?"

"No," Arthur says honestly, and he wonders if they're still talking about cons. "I've wanted things, sure. Wanted some things badly, even—" he glances at Eames, "—but I've always worked with what's in front of me. I start with something concrete, and I go from there."

"Direct as ever," Eames says, but it sounds wry rather than mocking or—as Arthur grew used to hearing, toward the end of things—contemptuous. "So you don't believe in ghosts because you've never seen one?"

"I guess." Arthur looks around, taking in the candles again, this pocket of warmth that Eames had created for—him. For them, possibly. "But it's not like I didn't want to see a ghost or that I didn't want to believe. Some parts of my life probably would've been easier if I did."

Eames sits up. "Oh? Like what?"

There's a range of responses Arthur could give. His mother's death. The first person he killed while on tour of duty. The first person he killed after he left. But when he speaks, what he finds himself saying is, "There was this time when I was eleven, almost twelve. And there was this guy, Cameron Reyes, who I thought was—so cool." He grins when Eames chuckles.

It was a crush, he tells Eames. Not that Arthur fully understood crushes, back then, let alone crushes on other boys. But Cameron was older, with deep tan skin and full lips, and the proud owner of a Yamaha motorcycle, which he rode—whenever possible—without a helmet.

"Ah," Eames says.

"Yeah," Arthur says. "Exactly." He takes a contemplative sip of wine. "So school lets out one day, and I'm walking home when I hear Cameron gunning it down the road."

Arthur had stopped to watch because that's what you do when the object of your nascent fantasies goes roaring past. And he was still watching when Cameron—taking the corner too tightly or encountering some gravel on the road, Arthur would never know—lost control of his motorcycle.

"He just went—" Arthur describes an arc through the air with his hand. "Headfirst into the ground. And the sound of it was—" He stops, until Eames shifts closer, arm brushing against Arthur's, solid and real.

"After that, I started having nightmares. Every night. I'd dream about falling or I'd dream about that sound, and when I woke up, I'd be— I couldn't move. Like I was paralysed or—or dead." Arthur takes a deep breath, reminding himself that he can. "This went on for days. Got so bad that I was scared to go to sleep. But then, about a week later, the ME's office releases Cameron's body, and he ends up at my parents' funeral home."

He half-expects Eames to say something like, 'your parents were undertakers?' or 'why have I never heard this before?'. But Eames simply says, "What happened then?"

"I went down to see his body while it was being prepared for cremation." Arthur looks at Eames out of the corner of his eye. "Sounds morbid, I know. I thought I'd be terrified, but when I got close to his body I was just—fine. Calm. And after that, the nightmares stopped."

Eames shifts again—away this time—and Arthur's head jerks up, dismayed. But Eames is simply shuffling around to sit in front of him, to peer at his face.

"So your first experience of violent death left you feeling—reassured, in the end?" Eames gives Arthur a searching look, then hums, contemplative, at Arthur's nod. "My experience was quite the opposite. Left me filled with questions that no one could—that no one seemed willing to answer."

Arthur touches Eames' knuckles carefully, then curls his fingers around Eames' when he doesn't pull away. "What happened? Who was it?"

"My dog," Eames says, inflectionless. He looks at Arthur, chin raised, like he's bracing himself for Arthur's laughter, or perhaps daring him to. Arthur gives his fingers a squeeze, saying nothing, and after a second the tension in Eames' jaw eases.

His name was Benson, Eames tells him. A white West Highland Terrier that Eames' father loathed, although the estate was large enough that he didn't have to see Benson—or Eames—unless he absolutely had to.

"About a year after I got Benson, there was a snowstorm a lot like this." Eames nods at the parlour window, at the snow still falling fast and thick outside. "Benson and I had been cooped up for days, and eventually—" he makes a frustrated gesture with his free hand, "—he escaped from my room while I was bathing. By the time I found him in the library, he'd already pissed on half the furnishings and was tearing the tassels off the handwoven Bokhara rug.

"My father was already in an infernal temper over—oh, God, what does it matter, really? Suffice to say, as soon as he saw what remained of the rug, and Benson barrelled towards him—" Eames cuts off, expression distant. "Well. It was quick, at least."

Arthur starts. "Are you saying—"

"He was ashamed of himself afterwards, I think," Eames adds. "Or perhaps that was merely wishful thinking on my part. He never said anything, and I was too—" he ducks his head, voice low with humiliation. "Too frightened."

Arthur makes a soft, soothing noise. "You were just a boy," he says. "He was a grown fucking man."

Eames shrugs jerkily. "That was never an acceptable excuse." He clears his throat. "Anyway. I was packed off to boarding school shortly after. But whenever I returned home, I thought—I was convinced I could hear Benson snuffling around my room at night. I'd hear him trotting along behind me in the halls, though I never saw anything, and so I'd ask everyone—the servants, relatives, guests who stayed over—" and here Eames' voice lifts, like a child's, "—'Did you hear that? Don't you think that sounded like a dog?'. It unsettled the hell out of everyone and embarrassed my father to no end. Drove him absolutely mad until one day he just—lost patience with me." Eames smiles, humourless. "So I stopped asking. But I didn't stop hearing, not for years."

There's—something in Eames' voice. An echo of the bewilderment Arthur had heard over the phone—two, almost three years ago—when Eames called and said, "I've just been informed that my father has passed away. The funeral is early next week."

Arthur had been continents away at the time, working a time-sensitive job for a volatile, well-connected client. When he offered to find someone to replace him as point—it would take a few days, he told Eames, but he could swing it—

"Good God, no, I don't need—that's quite unnecessary," was Eames' taut reply. "By the time you arrive, everything will be—it's unnecessary," he repeated. "I'm better off doing this alone."

"Alright," Arthur said, because if there was one thing he'd learned from growing up in the funeral business, it was that people processed grief in a million different ways. If Eames needed solitude, Arthur could give him that.

But he finds himself thinking now: what if he'd known? Maybe things would have been different, better, and Eames would be presenting Arthur with a room full of candles for an anniversary instead of—

Arthur stops. Shakes his head, and focuses on the man in front of him.

"I'm sorry I wasn't there," Arthur says, and Eames' eyes widen, followed by a grim, pensive look that makes Arthur's stomach drop. "I—what is it?"

"Do you know," Eames says slowly, "after we—after I ended things between us, I convinced myself that all would be well again if you just—if you came back and apologised, said it was all your fault?" He twists his hand in Arthur's until he can lace their fingers together. "If you admitted you were an insensitive bastard who was just going through the motions—"

"Going through the—" Arthur cuts himself off, thinking back on his return from the Volescu job.

 _Do you want to talk about it,_ he'd said, sitting down on the couch beside Eames. He'd barely gotten the question out before Eames gave him a sharp 'no' and left the room. Arthur didn't try asking again.

"I thought—I was trying to give you space," Arthur says, helplessly. "Respect your boundaries. I've seen people deal with death in so many ways, so when you said—" he closes his eyes for a second. "Jesus, that sounds like I'm blaming you, or—I'm not making excuses—"

Eames' frown deepens, and the hollow feeling in the pit of Arthur's stomach worsens. There's no way for him to prove it. To convince Eames that he really had been considering replacement point men, that he'd been ready to—

"I know," Eames says finally. He's still frowning. "Or rather, I know now." One corner of his mouth curls up, and Arthur's breath stutters, chest aching. "You've always been so very direct." Eames looks down at their hands, rubs his thumb over Arthur's. "I appreciate the apology, but the reality is, even if you'd been there, I don't think—I doubt it would have changed anything."

"You don't?" Arthur says. There's a sour, ashy taste in his mouth. The heat of the fire is suddenly too much, making his skin prickle.

Eames shakes his head. "As my therapist pointed out, if my father's death hadn't set me off, it would've been something else." He lifts his free hand, lets it drop. "The long distances. Our infrequent phone calls." His mouth twists. "Cobb."

"You—" Arthur's brain stutters. "You went to therapy?"

"A bloke named Lewis Mapplethorpe did," Eames replies. "Group therapy."

Arthur opens and closes his mouth a few times. He isn't sure what astonishes him more. The fact that Eames went, or that he's admitting to it, or—

His mind flashes to the tail end of their last, horrible conversation - the one that came after weeks of Eames freezing Arthur out, the pair of them alternating between frustrated arguments and frenzied makeup sex.

"You need to talk to someone about this," Arthur had said, hands shaking as he gathered up his jacket, his luggage, the hurt throbbing through his body warring with guilty relief. "It doesn't have to be me, obviously, but there are therapists, counsellors, groups you can go to—"

"Obviously," Eames echoed, his smile patronisingly bright. "Thank you ever so much for that piece of advice, Arthur." He held the door open wider. "It's lovely to know how much you care."

Now, Arthur sits back, stunned, and the motion pulls at his arm. He blinks down at their still-joined hands - at how tightly they're both holding on, their palms clammy and uncomfortable, and—

He blinks again when Eames tugs on his hand.

"Arthur," Eames says. "Arthur, you know that I—" he hesitates. "That is—you do know, don't you? You must." He looks around—at the dripping candles, the remnants of their dinner, the half-full wine bottle—lower lip caught between his teeth, boyishly young for a moment, and tenderness stirs in Arthur's chest.

"I get the feeling you were trying to say a lot of things with this," Arthur says slowly. "I don't know which of those things you're referring to right now."

"All of it," Eames replies immediately. "I'm referring to all of it, but most of all—" he swallows. "I wanted you to know how much I—how much I've come to care for you again. And all I want to know is if there's a chance." He brings his free hand up, brushes Arthur's jaw with featherlight fingers. "If it's possible that we could—try again."

Arthur closes his eyes, breath catching. His pulse thuds in his ears. He forces himself to breathe deeply, and the air that fills his lungs is sweet, smoky-warm and giddying—almost nauseatingly so. He opens his eyes.

"I want—" Arthur stops, taking in the room. Sees not just the glowing candles, but the still-shadowed corners, the mildew creeping across the ceiling and the scratches scoring the floorboards. It makes his throat tighten. "I want to say yes, I want to be happy about this—and I _am_ , but—" his shoulders hunch. "We could fuck this up. In some other way. We could—" the constriction in his throat turns choking, "—get hurt again."

"Yes." Eames' mouth is pressed into a thin, pale line, but he doesn't look away, doesn't let go of Arthur's hand. "We could."

"Then why would you want—" Arthur swallows. He tries to imagine Eames' face shuttering now, both of them returning to the way they were a year ago, two years ago, and his stomach clenches. "Doesn't it scare you?"

"Of course," Eames replies. He covers their already-clasped hands with his free hand, squeezing hard. "I can't give you any guarantees, Arthur. Nothing beyond the fact that if you want to give this—give us another try, then I'll—" he struggles briefly, "—I'll try, too. As best as I'm able."

The choking tension in Arthur's throat eases, dissipates, and something else flares to life in his chest—small, and bright and flickering like candlelight.

"Okay," Arthur says, nodding until the inanity of that registers. "I mean, if you're really going to try, then—so will I. Obviously."

"Obviously," Eames echoes, but this time his smile is a sweet, tentative curve that brings an answering one to Arthur's face.

He's contemplating leaning in—pressing a kiss to Eames' mouth and seeing if those lips are as soft and lush as he remembers—when another gust of wind hits. The walls groan, unseen pipes clank, and the candles and the firelight shiver as one, sending shadows dancing across the walls.

Eames fingers tighten around Arthur's, then loosen as an intermittent, electronic buzzing reaches their ears, emanating from somewhere outside the parlour.

Arthur exchanges a baffled look with Eames.

"Doorbell?" Eames says, and Arthur shakes his head. The house only has a door knocker, and—he cocks his head, listening hard—the sound seems to be coming from the back of the house, which contains nothing other than the laundry room, kitchen—

"Oven timer," Arthur guesses.

Eames disentangles their hands and pushes himself to his feet, heading for the light switch. Arthur flexes his tingling fingers, wipes his damp palm against his sleeping bag.

Eames flicks the switch, and the chandelier's incandescent light floods the room, warm and bright, almost blinding—then cuts out again.

"Well, shit," Arthur says, blinking away the after-images. "Something must have tripped."

Eames hums in agreement. "I'll go take a look." He pushes the double doors open, then returns to pick up the candle in its ridiculous brass candle holder. "You've traipsed all over this house today, it's only fair."

"No," Arthur says, "no, wait." He reaches for a candle, forming his own makeshift candle holder with a Dixie cup. "You don't have to—we can both go. It'll be easier."

Eames pauses. He gives Arthur another one of those small, sheepish smiles, then stretches a hand out.

Arthur takes it, lets Eames pull him up.

They head out into the dark together.


End file.
